Isaiah 6:9-13 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear you indeed, but understand not; and see you indeed, but perceive not.… Did it represent the ministry to which he was solemnly deputed as a forlorn hope, because, from the moral temper and confirmed habits of the people, an unfavourable result was antecedently certain? This seems the sense in which it was understood by the authors of the LXX, and its form, if Hebrew idiom be taken into account, is by no means inconsistent with this meaning. It is a mode of expression, very characteristic of Hebrew thought, to represent the result of a course of action as designed which is only foreseen or confidently anticipated. Familiar with forms of government in which the sovereign power appeared wholly without control, the Hebrews transferred ideas derived from this source to the government of God. They had a conviction that the Judge of all the earth must do right, but the conception of the rights of the creature and correlative responsibilities of the Creator did not lie within the horizon of their thought. Their overwhelming sense of the Divine power, absolutely ordering all events and giving no account of its dealings, permitted them to say, without any idea that they were imputing evil to God, "Why hast Thou made us to err from Thy ways, and hardened our heart from Thy fear?" (E. W. Shalders.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. |
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